So I am a big fan of the Fediverse, I love the idea of decentralisation and I believe this is how the future of social media should be. But here starts the problem.
All my friends are using Instagram or TikTok or else. I didnt think of that while I also used Instagram, but I think they are highly addicted. Its not possible for them to not use Instagram for at least 1h when we meet up. When I still used Instagram, I was part of the problem. But now that I left it a couple of months ago, I just realised the problem I used to live in.
Addiction is all about realising you are addicted, but I find it very hard to address the problem. I dont want to harm our friendship over social media and I am afraid that when I tell them about their addiction, they will not agree and find it impolite.
So I believe that social media can only survive if the people use it. Its all about user generated content and while the Fediverse is doing better than ever, it still needs more users ASAP.
How can we achieve getting those people on the Fediverse and, more importantly, hold them here, while they slowly get less addicted to social media and see the potential of the Fediverse.
Thank you for reading and for thinking about possible answers. I wrote the whole text by myself, this is not AI generated.
People only get “less addicted” if they want to or if they are getting their dopamine from some healthier alternatives. If you meet your friends and they all prefer to scroll IG for 1h instead of talking with each other, you need to find more more interesting things to do together.
I think this is a missunderstanding. They are not on their phone for a whole hour. But they get their phone out every hour to watch reels for 2-3min.
If it’s really only 3 minutes in the hour, maybe it’s not so bad after all? If you are annoyed by the behavior, maybe just look for a way to nudge them out of it. Tell them that the first to reach for their phones has to pay the next round. You don’t get to be preachy about it, but it forces them to be conscious about the habit.